Thursday, March 16, 2017

Take this pile of lightly fried calamari and shrimp that's been generously doused in a medium-hot red sauce. It's my and my brother Joe's go-to order when we're craving down-and-dirty Italian on those occasions when I visit him for a few days. The dish's origin is a not in the least memorable restaurant called Vincent's in Queens, New York, hard by JFK International Airport in an area known as Howard Beach.

Joe and I have enjoyed Vincent's calamari and shrimp together countless times through the years. Largely we do this when it's just the two of us on hand. We may stop by the restaurant after a day at the racetrack, or order takeout for watching a ballgame on TV. It's one of our little rituals. You know, the kind that bonds you to another, no matter the time or circumstance.

Last week marked the last time my brother and I would share this particular intimacy, though. I'm saddened by this; so is he, I'd imagine.

But it was time.

You see, just up the road and to the north of Howard Beach and Vincent's is a place called Ozone Park. It's the neighborhood where Joe has been living for around three decades. He moved there from our childhood home in Brooklyn after his two older brothers had gone off on their own, only Joe took our aging mother along with him so as not to leave her unattended. This is not how young men are supposed to build a life for themselves; nonetheless, Joe shouldered mom's dependence on him admirably, if against his own interests, until the day that she died.

He's a good man, my brother. Honor and loyalty flow through him freely—and he's got the devotion of many good people around him to prove it.

Joe finally left his old life in Ozone Park last week, determined to start a new and better life elsewhere, one that is unencumbered by the past. I went down to New York and spent several days helping him with the move. The night before the movers came the subject of where we would be eating came up.

"Vincent's?" said my brother, more a statement than a question.

We'd decided this last time would be a takeout run and so I waited in the car while Joe went inside. I could see that "The Fat Man" was at his usual place behind the cash register next to the door, and that he greeted my brother enthusiastically, which often is not at all the case.

"Did you say goodbye to him?" I asked when Joe returned with our food.

"Nah," said my brother. "Fat Man was in such a good mood tonight I figured why ruin it for him."

If I'd had any doubt about Joe's commitment to boldly turning a well-worn page in his life it was dispelled when he opened his takeout container.

"The hell is that?" I grunted, opening the last beer from an almost-empty refrigerator. "They give you the wrong order?"

Joe's container held not our usual shrimp and calamari, as mine, but rather cheese ravioli and meatballs.